


Breaking Fast

by Daegaer



Series: Burning Rome [8]
Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Historical, Ancient Rome, Assassins & Hitmen, Cooking, Gen, Male Friendship, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 17:18:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3700652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Sesithacus wants is <i>one</i> egg. Is it too much to ask?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Fast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [indelicateink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indelicateink/gifts).



No one dared – or thought it worth their while – to wake the household's tame barbarians, and so Sesithacus rolled from his mattress when the sun was climbing into the skies, and the business of the day was already well begun. He did not receive a good welcome in the kitchens.

"Don't you know there were great sacrifices yesterday?" the cook sniffed, looking down his nose. "I am going to buy meat. No one has time to give you food. Yesterday's bread is over there. Don't take anything else." He sailed out, the other kitchen slaves in tow.

 _Bastard_ , Sesithacus thought, wondering again how a cook could be so thin. _If you think I'm eating dry bread -_ He waited, listening hard to the thoughts of any others he could hear. No one seemed near, so he took a loaf of soft, fresh bread and tore a piece from it, chewing as he opened the door to the cool pantry. He smiled as he saw the large bowl of soft cheese and the basket of goose eggs. It was the work of a moment to grab an egg and find a skewer to carefully poke a hole in the top of the shell. Then he made a little dent in the ashes at the edge of the kitchen hearth and put his prize in to bake. While it cooked he rummaged out a few rather overripe figs and ate them slowly, tossing the small, incriminating stalks into the hearth to burn. At last he could wait no longer and burnt his fingers snatching the egg out again, peeling the shell away and dropping the slightly wobbly result into the cook's favourite little bowl.

Sesisthacus poked at the egg in his bowl with an ash-coated finger. It had better be cooked, he thought. He wasn't putting it back in the hearth now that he'd peeled it. It seemed hot enough, at least. He put the bowl down and went to get a good helping of the fresh cheese the kitchen maids had made the day before. He returned to find Februus holding his egg, about to take a bite.

"Don't you dare," he said. "Put your own in the ashes if you want one."

Februus bit it in half and licked the yolk from his fingers. "Leave it in the fire another while the next time, I like them harder." He grinned an eggy smile at Sesisthacus' anger and went off, chewing the remains of his theft.

"Son of a whore," Sesisthacus muttered, quietly, so that Februus would not hear him and come back. "Son of a diseased, egg-stealing whore." He took another egg from the basket in the pantry and carefully put it at the edge of the hearth, in the little hollow left by his first. He sat on the cook's cushioned stool and dozed for a while, dreaming of hot eggs. He woke with a start to see Sanagi standing beside him, his small hand held out over the hearth and the egg rising up to his grasp.

"That's mine!"

"No longer," Sanagi said peaceably. He frowned a little at the heat of the shell, and held his hand out, palm upward, the egg floating above it. He leveled a straight gaze at Sesithacus. "You will not impugn my ancestry as you did that of Februus."

"You little eavesdropper! What if I do?"

"Do it," Sanagi said in his crisp, precise Latin as the egg revolved above his palm, the shell peeling itself away in a neat, continuous strip, "and find out."

"Oh, just take the damned egg," Sesithacus said with ill grace. "Little children need food to help them grow."

Something that was very nearly a smile crossed Sanagi's solemn little face. _Little shit_ , Sesithacus thought, careful to keep the thought within his own mind as Sanagi closed his thin fingers round the egg and nibbled at it like a well brought up child. It was a relief to see him go.

Sesithacus smeared cheese on his bread and ate, glaring at nothing. Then he went back to the pantry and fetched two eggs. He sat, watching them slowly baking in the hot ashes, raking more up around them to make sure they would cook evenly. When Caratacus came in, already washed and looking as much of a prophetic British dreamer as any wealthy Roman employer could want, Sesithacus just smiled, as if he'd been expecting him.

"You don't have to steal it, I did one for you too," he said.

"You've started seeing the future, have you?" Caratacus said, amused.

"It's more that I can learn from the past." Sesithacus got the eggs out of the hearth and handed one to Caratacus. "It's probably soft in the middle, that's how I like them. I hope you don't mind?"

"It's how I like them too," Caratacus said. He peeled his egg and ate it cheerfully. "It's good; better than the fancy muck the high-born Romans like to eat."

"You really do hate them, don't you? You even hate their food," Sesithacus said.

"In this whole city there are only three people I _don't_ hate," Caratacus said, smiling like he was making a comment about how nice a day it was. He picked up what was left of Sesithacus' loaf and took a bite. "The bread's not that bad, though, I'll give them that," he said indistinctly.

Sesithacus shook his head that this was the closest thing he had to a friend, in this place so far from home, and laughed a little at the strange humour of the gods.

"Come on, let's get out of here before the cook gets back and sees how much we’ve eaten," he said, putting an arm round Caratacus' shoulders to steer him safely from the kitchens. The Briton's mind was full of the pleasure of good bread and the hot egg, and the coming joy of destruction. Sesithacus grabbed up a final loaf as they left. There was no harm in trying to keep a friend distracted a while longer, he thought.


End file.
